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REFLECTION OF RHETORICAL PATTERN IN THE
INTRODUCTION OF
ACADEMIC RESEARCH REPORTS
Tanzil Huda
Muhammadiyah Jember University, Jl.Karimata 49 Jember, Indonesia
Corresponding e-mail: tanzil_huda@yahoo.com
Abstract: There exists a reciprocal relationship among thought, culture, and language. The relationship is clearly seen in the form of rhetoric. However, rhetoric is different from culture to culture. Certainly, this principle gives a big implication to English teaching as a foreign language. This recent study aimed at investigating the way Indonesian writers establish their rhetoric reflected in the introduction chapter of English academic reports (theses). The study also tried to investigate type of rhetoric of Indonesian reflected in the introduction of English theses. The data were collected by using the technique, namely documentation and text analysis and analysed by the researcher on the basis the scientific writing agreement model especially that is introduced by Swales and Connor & Lauer model. The result showed that Indonesian writers establish their rhetoric reflected in the introduction of English theses in an appropriate manner of scientific writing. Besides, the rhetoric applied by Indonesian writer in the introduction of English theses has followed deductive type of reasoning
Keywords:Language, culture, thought, rhetorical pattern, academic research report
1. INTRODUCTION
The relation of language, culture, and rhetoric as the manifestation of thought, has become an intriguing issue among the scholars for many years. This issue is really attributed to several big theories of linguistics and contributes to the underlying principles of the studies in applied linguistics. To come upon the issue, it is worthy to trace back the commencement of the issue by digging up its generating theories.
It was Sapir, cited in Blount (1974), who firstly claims that the content of every culture is brought about by its language. Culture as the result of human’s creative power, intention, and feeling in a form of experiences is reflected in social behavior which is constructed by individual behavior. Those human experiences then are expressed by symbols in a form of language, as de Saussure claims in Kadarisman (2008) that language is a social fact. Then, Sapir in Blount (1974) perceives that language is a perfect symbolism of experience, meaning that in actual context of behavior, it cannot be
divorced from action and that it is the carrier of a nuanced expressiveness are universally psychological facts. To response the idea, Whorf in Blount (1974) states that language is not merely an instrument for expressing ideas or reflecting experiences but more than that it shapes the ideas. The idea is supported by
Chomsky’s idea about the true relationship
between languages and thought in Susilo (2004) stating that language can fulfil its primary role as an instrument for the expression or communication of thought. The idea is sharpened by Basthomi (2006) who compares
Chomsky’s language competence to Hymes’
communicative competence and
communication in which communicative purposes are influential in genre-specific writings as produced and reproduced or sustained by discourse community (Hymes, 1979; Canale and Swain, 1980).
Moreover, the idea is incorporated with
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backgrounds of the interpreters and that languages encode these differences and
Sapir-Whorf’s theory of determinism in Sampson (1980) which perceives that not only does the world-view of speakers of certain language influences their language, but also that language they use profoundly affects how they think (Susilo, 2004). It can be said that what exists and goes in mind of a speaker and utterances of language he/she expresses mutually affects each other.
The relationship among language, culture and thought then are clearly seen in the form of rhetoric. As Wahab (1992) perceives that the relationship of language, culture, and thought appears in rhetoric, as the supra-sentential aspect of language and it is different from culture to culture. He adds that rhetoric as the manifestation of thought pattern which bound with logic should not be universal. While the rhetoric for communication relates to the employment of rhetorical skills and conventions as expected and upheld by a discourse community. The nature of the relationship among language, thought, and culture is already supported by the theory of symbolic
Interactionism and the theory of Social and
Cultural Reality (Susilo, 2004). In another
words, it can be stated that, rhetoric is the manifestation of thought and culture through
language. This idea is in line with Kaplan’s
(1980) contrastive rhetoric theory in Croft (1980) claiming that the society and culture transcend and control individuals. Later, he finds that there are four different thought patterns in the world.
Several studies to investigate rhetoric have been done by many scholars both in native language context and non-native language context especially those related to some issues of contrastive rhetoric i.e., 1) the goal and research methods of contrastive rhetoric affected the scope of its impact on other areas of applied linguistics and beyond, 2) the use of new approaches of study, 3) the intellectual history and social structures of the cultures, and 4) diachronic study of rhetoric to identify the evolution of patterns and norms (Connor,
2002). Concerning with the first three issues of contrastive rhetoric study, the research conducted by Cahyono (2001), Susilo (2004), Basthomi (2006), and Budiharso (2006) tangibly in general show that rhetoric of Indonesian, is proved to be different significantly from English. As Cahyono (2001) study through his quantitative approach of
research which applied Connor and Lauer’s
model of investigation concluded that students of Indonesia applied different rhetorical
strategies of writing. While Susilo’s (2004) and Budiharso’s (2006) investigations on the basis
of qualitative research approach found that Indonesian students rhetoric tends to apply non-linear model with several variations. Different from the previous researchers, Basthomi (2006) study applying the model of rhetoric analysis proposed by Swales (1990) which is known as a
Create a Research Space model (CARS
model), claimed that Indonesian journal editors and Indonesian writer of research articles have the tendency to hold Indonesian flavour of rhetoric despite their experiences living or living in English-speaking countries.
In spite of a number of researches on rhetoric already conducted, a research of rhetoric which covers all the issues is necessarily done. The recent research is conducted on the basis of the need of variability of study on rhetoric. This study which is also based on Indonesian setting which covers various issues such as the subject of research involved (undergraduate program students) who write introduction in their theses (due to academic issue) which is studied by using a combination model i.e., Connor and Lauer
(1988) model and Swales’ CARS model (1990).
The first model utilizes three measures: the superstructure of argument, the Toulmin model of informal reasoning, and the persuasive appeals (Cahyono, 2001). The second model proposes three moves of introduction (rhetoric) structure (Basthomi, 2006).
Rhetoric reflected in the introduction is expected to reflect the pure individual thought of the writers (Indonesian) and cover everything
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competences) the abstracts of theses used as the source of data really are written individually. The appearance of the promoters (advisors) of theses is only due to the guidance on the content or the idea of theses. This study aims at 1) investigating the way Indonesian writers establish their rhetoric reflected in the introduction of undergraduate English theses, 2) investigating type of rhetoric of Indonesian reflected in the introduction of undergraduate English theses.
Expectedly, the result of study will give implication on EFL teaching. In the classroom, especially in writing class, the learner writers who come from different cultures may have developed certain preconception about features of culturally and rhetorically appropriate writing which they learn in their countries and which may differ dramatically from those operated in the English writings. By understanding manner of scientific writing which is represented by CARS model and flow of logic of writing introduced by Toulmin’s model, EFL learners will be able to develop their writing competence.
2. RESEARCH METHOD
The descriptive design was applied because it was relevant to the aim of the study. It was to describe the rhetoric reflected in the introduction of theses, in which the researcher sets out the study by posing himself as the key instrument (Bogdan & Biklen, 1992), working out by analysing the data himself until drawing the inferences to substantiate theory. Content analysis (Holsti, 1969) was appropriately applied for it described the characteristics of content and made inference about the cause of content and the effect of content. This technique was used to determine rhetoric and linguistic features of text (Krippendorf, 1980; Miles and Huberman, 1994). The objectives analysis of the text was accomplished by means of explicit rules called criteria of selection which must be formally established before the actual analysis of data (Berg, 1989). This idea conformed to the principle and the nature of this study.
The procedure of the research performed in this study was 1) selecting the introduction of
English theses accomplished in 2008 and investigating the organization of the introduction; and 2) drawing inferences about rhetoric reflected in the introduction of the theses. However, the researcher does those steps repeatedly or by several re-checks before cross-checking with other colleagues who are experts in that matter.
The source of data of this study was those introductions of English theses written by the undergraduate students of Jember State
University and Muhammadiyah Jember
University in the academic year 2014/2015. There were only 18 theses of 90 (20 %) taken as the sample of the study. While the data of this study were the constituents in the form of steps used in developing the introductions of theses as they were attributed in writing research article (RAs). The data also comprised the threads of discourse, which was the pattern used by the writers of introduction of theses. The data were collected by using the technique, namely documentation and text analysis (Silverman, 1993) and analyzed by the researcher on the basis the scientific writing agreement model especially that was introduced by Swales (1990) known as CARS model and Connor & Lauer model (1988).
Data analysis in this study was conducted in two phases: during the activities of data collection and after collecting data. Data analysis during the activities of data collection was aimed at anticipating the possibilities of data exaggeration. This analysis also helped the researcher to analyze the data step by step.
Furthermore, data analysis during and after collecting data was conducted in three stages: reducing data, displaying data, and drawing conclusion or verifying the data (Miles & Huberman, 1992). Data collection, data reduction, data display, and data conclusion drawing or verification were cycles which are interacted before, during, and after finishing data collection.
The trustworthiness of the results of the data analysis was necessary to be checked in order to
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triangulation to check the trustworthiness of the data analysis. The triangulation was in the form of cross-checking the result of data analysis to other colleague (a senior lecturer at English
Department, Muhammadiyah Jember
University). In this study, the researcher set out cross-checking from the data reduction step until the data analysis.
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
On the basis of research methodology and with the reference to research problems, this part presents finding of the research. The first question of the study asks how Indonesian writers establish their rhetoric reflected in the introduction of English theses. By utilizing
Swale’s model of Genre Analysis which
proposes three Moves of research report construction, the study results some findings.
With regard to the first category of Swales’
model (establishing a territory or Move 1), in theses # 1, the writer starts the introduction of her theses by making the territory of the topic, which is discussing the position of English language in the world communication. Just at the second paragraph, she narrows down the topic of the discussion by focusing only on the importance of vocabulary as the language component of English. Such a kind feature also can be found in the introduction of theses # 2 in which the writer begins her discussion with presenting the nature of English as a means of communication. Then, it is followed by the discussion which focuses only on writing skill. Similarly, the features are also found in all introductions of the English theses.
However, there was variability of the way in establishing a territory (Move 1). In the introduction of theses #13, the writer applies circular way of discussion in establishing a territory. She starts her introduction by discussing the various languages used in the world communication which seems to be not necessarily presented in. She just narrows the field of her study almost in the middle of the introduction by stating in paragraph # 6 that vocabulary is important language component to be accomplished the learners. Such a kind of the way of establishing a territory is also
discovered in the introductions of theses #15 and # 18.
Concerning with the second category or Move 2 (establishing Niche) of Swale’s model, the writer of theses # 1 presents it just almost in the middle of the background of the study (paragraph # 5 of 11 paragraphs). It is indicated
by the presentation of writer’s opinion about the
English learners’ difficulties in comprehending vocabularies. She continues her discussion the affected factors to the difficulties. Presenting the category 2 (Move 2) in such way also can be seen in the introduction of theses # 4. The writer describes the problem faced by the junior high students in writing, particularly in combining and constructing their ideas to produce sentences correctly. This discussion is presented in paragraph # 5 in the background of the introduction of the theses.
Unlike the most of the writers, some other writers ignore to establish a niche in the introduction of theses. In the introduction of theses # 2, for instance, the writer fails to indicate the gap of the study. The failure in indicating the gap also occurs in some other introductions of the theses (5 introductions).
In relation to the third category of Swales’
model of the introduction of research article agreement (Move 3), all the writers of theses in this study presents the purpose of their study in the last part of the introductions. As in theses # 4, the writer ends the discussion of the background of the study in the introduction of the theses by explaining the purpose of her study is that the usefulness of story mapping
technique in improving the students’ writing
achievement. Since it has become the convention of research’ report format. All the writers present research question of these studies.
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Table 1. Occurrences of Moves in the Introductionof Theses introductions of the theses provide claim, data, and warrant. The findings of the study can be seen in Table 2.
Table 2. Score of Introduction of Theses Analysed Using Toulmin Model introduction of English theses write the specific problem of the studies explicitly. But they do not use extensive use of specific data related to the major claim. The data also shows that they only use some warrants which can be used as the bridge between data and the claim they made.
In writing the introduction of the theses, the writers mostly applied deductive type of logic. They started the discussion from the general matter to the specific one which later became the focus of the study.
This study has resulted two findings. First, most of Indonesian writers of ndergraduate English utheses applied the rhetoric in the introductions in appropriate way of writing, fulfilling the criteria proposed by Swales (1990). In writing the introductions, they presented three Moves consisting establishing territory, establishing a niche, and occupying a niche. But the quality of the introduction inspected from parameter of writing
organization introduced by Toulmin’s (1988)
was supposed to be fair. The introduction of the theses in the data analysed could not reached the maximum criteria of a good reasoning.
Second, Indonesian writer of undergraduate English theses applied deductive type of logic introduction of undergraduate theses establish their rhetoric reflected in the introduction of English theses in an appropriate manner of scientific writing which is represented by CARS model. Second, the rhetoric applied by Indonesian writer in the introduction of undergraduate English theses is followed deductive type of reasoning.
5. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to express my gratitude to Muhammadiyah Jember University for its financial support which enabled me to join this conference. I also thank to the librarians at Jember State University and Muhammadiyah Jember University who kindly provided me a plentiful data of this study.
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